Why I'm Not a Pastry Chef!! - Printable Version +- Cuisine at home Forums (https://forums.cuisineathome.com) +-- Thread: Why I'm Not a Pastry Chef!! (/showthread.php?tid=123395)

Why I'm Not a Pastry Chef!! - cjs - 06-21-2011 I am so bad when it come to pastry/baking - I swear to God, I can screw up a baking recipe so fast it would make a saint's head twirl!!! I make 60 minute dinner rolls all the time and today because I forgot I didn't have the sweet potatoes for Maryann's rolls (first mistake), I had to resort to the old standby. But, my black ink cartridge is almost empty so I scanned the recipe from a Chef's Journey...Home (page 192 ). Well in scanning the "/" marks didn't come thru. so the recipe said: ----yeast 114 cup water ---sugar 112 cup vege oil\ 1 112 cups buttermilk blah, blah, blah..... for some reason, I read 114 water as 1 1/4 cup (instead of 1/4 cup) but when I was adding the vege oil and the buttermilk, I read it correctly as 1/2 cup oil and 1 1/2 cup buttermilk. Well, can you imagine how loose this darn bread dough was?? Plus I had addded all the herbs + white pepper that I had been playing with in the pizza dough. So, here I am with all this loose, loose, extremely loose dough on my work board trying to add just enough flour to make a cohesive mess that I could work with. I told Roy, I was going to be so p*ssed if these darn rolls turned out to be the best I've ever done.... I've never made such a subtle flavored and light dinner roll - they will just float away from you they are so light and fluffy. And, if I hadn't screwed the liquid up, I think they would have been overly seasoned. As they are, you get the flavor of the herbs in the mid-tongue and the slight heat of the white pepper on the side. (maybe too much info, but I was amazed) Now, I have to figure out exactly how much more flour I added - it ended up a very loose dough, but workable. Oh my. Re: Why I'm Not a Pastry Chef!! - Gourmet_Mom - 06-21-2011 At least you knew what to do. I would have probably given up and thrown the whole mess out and start over...LOL! They look delicious! Re: Why I'm Not a Pastry Chef!! - cjs - 06-21-2011 Well now, what a great way to look at this. Re: Why I'm Not a Pastry Chef!! - pjcooks - 06-21-2011 Looks good to me, Jean! After all, the famous Wakefield (?) MA Toll House cookies came about this way, look where that has gone! PJ Re: Why I'm Not a Pastry Chef!! - Harborwitch - 06-21-2011 Oh Jean they are beautiful!!! I hope you can figure it out so you can make them again! Re: Why I'm Not a Pastry Chef!! - cjs - 06-21-2011 me, too Re: Why I'm Not a Pastry Chef!! - Old Bay - 06-21-2011 Beautiful Jean!! I've always said, cooking is chemistry, baking is alchemy--you are an alchemist!! Re: Why I'm Not a Pastry Chef!! - Mare749 - 06-21-2011 Don't you love happy accidents? Those look great, Jean! Re: Why I'm Not a Pastry Chef!! - Cubangirl - 06-22-2011 Some of my best recipes come out of mistakes like that. I love it when the mistake is leaving out a whole bunch of sugar and it still works. I would be so much more comfortable doing this with cakes or cookies than with rolls. I've baked lots of bread, but have always been afraid of rolls so I've never made any and actually prefer rolls. Those look so good. I admire you for making it work. Now go back and visualize yourself making the recipe and track slowly so you can see your hands adding the flour. You might get an idea how much you use and write that down as a starting point next time. (Don't laugh, I use this all the time because my ADHD has always made my memory and iffy thing.) Re: Why I'm Not a Pastry Chef!! - cjs - 06-22-2011 Exactly what I'm going to do tomorrow, CubanGirl, while it is still fresh in my memory.